WI: the US followed through with it's threats againist Japan and Spain in the early 1850s?

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Map by u/KolonelJoe on Reddit.

Can the United States actually win againist both nations in the 1850s and take these territories? What would be the impact of slavery? Would this begin American colonization of Japan?
 
Cuba and Nicaragua are possible, although I'm not sure the US has a big enough navy and army to take lands any further away during the 1850s.
 
Cuba and Nicaragua are possible, although I'm not sure the US has a big enough navy and army to take lands any further away during the 1850s.

I'm fairly sure it didn't. The US wasn't even confident enough in it's ability to project force to actually enforce the Monroe Doctrine itself, instead letting Britain handle it until arguably after the US' civil war.

And it's not just the number of ships or the size of the army, it's also the fact that the US simply lacks the basing to operate on a large scale outside of the Americas in the 1850s. Even the person who forced the Japanese to open their ports had to use British and Portuguese ports to get his ships there. There's zero chance of the US managing to get a large naval force and sufficient troops to either Japan or the Philippines and keep them supplied with any force multipliers like guns and artillery in the 1850s.
 
I'm fairly sure it didn't. The US wasn't even confident enough in it's ability to project force to actually enforce the Monroe Doctrine itself, instead letting Britain handle it until arguably after the US' civil war.

And it's not just the number of ships or the size of the army, it's also the fact that the US simply lacks the basing to operate on a large scale outside of the Americas in the 1850s. Even the person who forced the Japanese to open their ports had to use British and Portuguese ports to get his ships there. There's zero chance of the US managing to get a large naval force and sufficient troops to either Japan or the Philippines and keep them supplied with any force multipliers like guns and artillery in the 1850s.
Yeah, I'd say that, assuming the US military gets the same size/funding as IOTL, it probably can't begin to contemplate transoceanic expansion until the 1880s or 1890s.
 
Cuba and Nicaragua are possible, although I'm not sure the US has a big enough navy and army to take lands any further away during the 1850s.
Yeah I’m seconding this idea. The US can probably take Nicaragua, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. They’re all relatively close to home and would likely have some basis of support amongst the locals in Cuba and Nicaragua, even if it wasn’t a large amount. It’s difficult to see the US being able to fight a two front naval war with Spain though. Maybe the smaller islands in the pacific could be claimed by a ship captain and his marines, but the Philippines seems extremely unlikely.

As for Japan, it’s hard to see a war happening as the Japanese knew they were technologically outmatched and weren’t eager to fight. But let’s hand wave that and say it happens. The US could certainly win battles at sea against the Japanese and probably some on land as well during Perry’s expedition. I just can’t see him conquering and keeping anything on mainland Japan with his small force and his logistical issues. In all honesty I’d expect a treaty similar to the one he got OTL, with maybe the Bonin (since Perry “bought” the colony there OTL for 50 dollars) and Ryukyu islands being ceded since Perry seemed to recognize the value of the smaller, easier to control islands when it came to coaling stations.

Which leaves us with Formosa/Taiwan. Technically there were large portions of the island that belonged to no one since the Qing had only colonized and claimed control very slowly. That said when the Japanese used that excuse later in history the Qing we’re very unhappy with them and after paying them to leave proceeded to conquer, populate, and control the rest of the island. Your best bet might be to have the Americans conquer the eastern portion of the island and then claim the rest in some unequal treaty. Assuming they have a larger naval presence from the past two hypothetical conflicts they can pull off a naval version of what the Russians did in the Treaty of Aigun. This is the least plausible of the the scenarios except for the Philippines IMO though.
 
Spain could have sunk the us navy easily,they didn't declined till the failed sexenio democrático and was still a power unlike the USAwankers here
 
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